The OPCW Douma investigation
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The OPCW Douma investigation is the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons inquiry into an alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria, in April 2018, and one of the cases John Kiriakou uses to argue that institutional findings can be manufactured rather than merely mistaken.

"This is a far bigger deal," he said of the documents released from OPCW whistleblowers: "fifteen separate investigators objecting to the fact that their analysis was either taken out of context or it was falsified entirely."

What was suppressed, on his account, was a negative finding, "that there was no evidence to indicate that such an attack took place. The information was falsified, and it was the false information that was used to come to a political conclusion."

The route it had to take

Kiriakou treats the disclosure as both admirable and damning. That the investigators came forward "I think is wonderful. It was very brave." That they had to go to WikiLeaks to be heard is the part he objects to, and, he adds, the reason anyone knows at all: "we wouldn't know any of the story without WikiLeaks."

The narrative that survived it

His closing observation is about what the revelations did not change. "It's funny, that's what the investigators said from the very beginning, and nobody paid any attention to them." Even after the releases, he noted, programmes including Morning Joe on MSNBC and Ali Velshi were still repeating that a chlorine gas attack had taken place at Douma.

See also

- Julian Assange
- The death of investigative journalism
- Bashar al-Assad
